The time has come! The federal Labor government’s Cheaper Home Batteries rebate launches on Tuesday, July 01, kicking off what has been dubbed “the most important development in consumer energy” since the launch of the national rooftop solar scheme.
The $2.3 billion plan, unveiled just weeks before the federal election, is designed to dramatically boost home battery uptake by cutting the up-front cost of installation by an average of around 30 per cent – potentially, thousands of dollars – for homes and businesses.
The landmark policy arrives in a cloud of dust, with the final tweaks to the final draft of the amended Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) legislation signed off by the Governor-General on Saturday.
But it has been a long time in the making, including through years of lobbying and consultation led by industry groups like the Smart Energy Council (SEC) and Clean Energy Council (CEC).
“This is not just a milestone, but the next chapter in our nation’s clean energy journey – the next phase in consumers taking control of their energy bills,” said CEO general manager for distributed energy, Con Hristodoulidis, on Monday.
Now that it’s here, it’s time to take another look at what Cheaper Home Batteries offers, how it will work, what consumers need to know, and how it will differ in New South Wales and Western Australia, where state schemes add their own twists.
What is it?
Cheaper home batteries offers eligible households and small businesses an around 30% discount on the upfront cost of installing small-scale battery systems with a usable capacity of anywhere between 5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) to 100 kWh.
As part of the SRES, the battery discount is delivered through the creation and sale of small-scale technology certificates (STC). The discount rate in 2025 is represented as 9.3 STCs per kWh of usable capacity, equivalent to around $372 per kWh.
The calculation of STCs is based on the number of STCs per kWh of installed usable capacity of the battery and the year of installation, as outlined in the table below. The number of STCs will decline for battery systems until the scheme ends in 2030.
For example, Solar Choice notes that a 10 kWh battery (average price: ~$11,120) would attract a rebate of around $3,300, reducing the net cost to $7,400.
What are the eligibility criteria?
The rebate is not means tested, so is open to any household or business installing a solar battery. The rebate is limited to one solar battery per household or business.
A solar battery system with a nominal (total) capacity of 5 kWh to 100 kWh is eligible, and must be installed with a new or existing solar photovoltaic (PV) system.
The government says: “Support will be provided for one battery system at a single premises and only for the first time a battery system is installed, added to, or replaced. This could be installed at the same time or additional battery units or components could be added later.”
The batteries installed through the rebate must be listed on the Clean Energy Council (CEC) approved product list and installed by an installer with battery accreditation with Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA). They must also be installed to meet state and territory electrical safety requirements and installation standards.
The CEC says: “There are now over 750 Clean Energy Council-approved battery products available to consumers, a 17 per cent increase in just six months, giving Australians more choice than ever.”
Batteries installed through the SRES must also have the technical capability to participate in a virtual power plant – a system of aggregated and coordinated consumer energy resources that is able to be controlled by third party.
A battery is VPP capable if the inverter can connect to the electricity grid and external entities (directly or indirectly) and can communicate and respond through remote signals.
Participation in a VPP is not a requirement of the program, except in Western Australia (see below).
Off-grid battery systems do not need to be VPP capable, but if a VPP capable battery system is installed at a premises that is off-grid, it can still receive support under the program.
The installation of the battery system must be done by, or with supervision on-site from, an accredited battery installer under Solar Accreditation Australia (SAA).
A battery system is considered to be eligible to create STCs from the date of issuance of a certificate of electrical compliance (or its state or territory equivalent). This certification provides assurance that the battery installation complies with the relevant state or territory electrical safety regulations.
What consumers applying for the rebate should do, and know
The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) recommends consumers research which battery system best suits their needs and get multiple quotes before making a final choice.
Choosing an an “appropriately sized” battery will mean weighing up each consumer’s energy needs, wants and consumption and production profiles. The federal government says: “This should be clearly communicated to the consumer when recommending and installing a system.”
The CER says: “It is important to research the retailer and installer you choose and make an informed choice. Review the contract carefully, we also recommend you maintain documentation (email correspondence, quotes etc.) from the sales process.”
The federal government’s Solar Consumer Guide – created with support from experts including the Australian PV Institute and the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW Sydney – has some good tips, as does the Your Home guide on batteries and inverters.
Solar Choice has some great advice, here, and a battery payback calculator.
Solar Quotes is also an invaluable resource.
Watch out for dodgy sales tactics and too-good-to-be-true offers
A few weeks ago, the Clean Energy Regulator warned the solar battery industry that it was keeping an eagle eye out for any signs of regulatory non-compliance, dodgy sales tactics or poor customer service under the battery rebate program.
Consumers should be on alert, too.
Schemes like Cheaper Home Batteries can attract bad actors, keen to get a piece of the action. But, as noted above, there are strict rules on who can install batteries under the scheme, how they must be installed, and which products can be used.
“We need to ensure that …what [the consumer is] sold is what they’re going to get and it performs the way they their system is meant to work. So we will continue to work with relevant jurisdictions to ensure that the sale practices are meeting the consumer needs,” Matt Power, a general manager at the CER, told an industry webinar in late May.
“What we would ask is, if there any reports of bad behaviour, these are put forward to the [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] and relevant state and territories bodies so that action can be taken quickly.
“If we find that retailers, installers are signing false and misleading statements as part of the STC [rebate] claim, we will remove these players from the market if they continue to do that behaviour.”
Power says retailers and installers will also be expected to fully brief customers on the requirement of the rebate for their home battery to virtual power plant compatible – and the options available, if they did choose to join a VPP.
Victorian households and businesses should note that cold-calling and door knocking and other unsolicited marketing tactics are banned in the state. NSW is also working to ban these practices.
All about virtual power plants
For consumers intending – or required – to sign up to a VPP with their discounted battery, the strong advice here, too, is to Do Your Own Research.
As the industry itself concedes, VPPs are still in their formative years and – while they continue to be revised and improved – can be off-putting to consumers in their complexity.
That said, there are plenty of them around to meet different household needs and different demand profiles and varying levels of consumer buy-in. Most big and medium and even small, renewable energy focused retailers now have at least one VPP offering, and in some cases several.
SunWiz’s latest data on VPP incentive registration by state and retailer in the first three months of 2025 shows which offers available on the National Electricity Market (NEM) are currently dominating, while Solar Quotes has a nifty VPP comparison table.
At the CER webinar in May, concerns were also raised around some VPPs being limited to certain brands of batteries, and the complications this may cause for installers and consumers.
The CER says: “You really need to understand those contractual arrangements that you may have with a retailer to sign up for those [sort of VPPs].
“So please ensure, before you do that, you really get a key understanding of how those arrangements work … and what your get-out clauses are as part of those [VPPs], as well.
“If we’re aware of some contractual arrangements that are clearly misunderstood or going to be misunderstood by consumers, those types of things should be made very clear to the Clean Energy Regulator or the department, so we can pass those relevant kind of consumer concerns on to the relevant commonwealth and state territory authorities that can look further into that.”
What’s the deal in WA?
In Western Australia, which is not a part of the NEM, the Cheaper Home Batteries rebate is being combined with the state government’s battery program, making it a different kettle of fish to the rest of the country.
Synergy customers will be eligible to receive a maximum rebate of $5,000 and Horizon Power (regional) customers for up to $7,500 under the combined schemes.
Further households with an income of less than $210,000 per year will have access to no interest loans of up to $10,000.
But the key difference in WA, is that it is mandatory for participants in the scheme to join a VPP as part of the scheme, for a minimum of two years.
And there’s not a heap of choice, either. Customers on the Horizon network will have to join Horizon Power Community Wave, while customers of the Synergy network currently have a choice of two: Synergy Battery Rewards or Plico Virtual Power Plant.
As Katalin Polus noted at Australian Energy Week recently, this makes WA a particularly interesting test-bed for VPP uptake and customer retention.
“[Our challenge is not] necessarily the appetite for customers for the product update, but how do we nurture that trust that … [customers] are asked to give us,” she says.
Polus says Synergy’s VPP product has been built in a way that customers feel they have a choice, even though it is mandatory to join.
“And the choice is that they can opt out,” she says. “It’s only for a certain term. As well as that we have fixed the number of activations that customer will need to participate in. And finally, we also do give a ‘not worse off’ guarantee.
“So in this really early phase of building trust with VPPs, we really wanted to go the extra mile and build a product that customers would opt in anyway, even if they weren’t required to. “And over the next two years, where we want to make our offering more complex, we can build that trust, bit by bit.”
WA also has its own list of approved batteries and inverters which, according to the government website, has not been announced yet. Battery retailers and installers also must be registered with the scheme again, list not announced yet.
What’s the deal in New South Wales?
In New South Wales, the state’s existing home battery rebate ends on June 30 and the federal rebate takes over on July 01. But households that sign up to a VPP can get access to a boosted discount, as part of the state’s Peak Demand Reduction Scheme.
According to an state government information page here, from July 01 the incentive amounts NSW households can get for joining their solar battery to a VPP will increase to up to $550 for a 10 kWh battery and up to $1,500 for a 27 kWh battery.
The NSW govt says: “The actual incentive amount you receive will vary depending on factors like:” the VPP provider you choose, and; the contract you agree to with your VPP provider, including the price you get for sending solar to the grid and the timing of when the VPP can access your battery.
The government also says that, depending on your VPP provider, consumers may need to change their electricity retailer.
Virtual Power Plant providers offering the NSW incentive currently include: AGL, Amber, Engie, Globird, Origin, Powow, Shinehub.
Anything we’ve missed? Let us know by email or in the comments.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
